From Quarterly to Monthly Turnover Figures Using Nowcasting Methods
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Short-term business statistics at Statistics Netherlands are largely based on Value Added Tax (VAT) administrations. Companies may decide to file their tax return on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Most companies file their tax return quarterly. So far, these VAT based short-term business statistics are published with a quarterly frequency as well. In this article we compare different methods to compile monthly figures, even though a major part of these data is observed quarterly. The methods considered to produce a monthly indicator must address two issues. The first issue is to combine a high- and low-frequency series into a single high-frequency series, while both series measure the same phenomenon of the target population. The appropriate method that is designed for this purpose is usually referred to as “benchmarking”. The second issue is a missing data problem, because the first and second month of a quarter are published before the corresponding quarterly data is available. A “nowcast” method can be used to estimate these months. The literature on mixed frequency models provides solutions for both problems, sometimes by dealing with them simultaneously. In this article we combine different benchmarking and nowcasting models and evaluate combinations. Our evaluation distinguishes between relatively stable periods and periods during and after a crisis because different approaches might be optimal under these two conditions. We find that during stable periods the so-called Bridge models perform slightly better than the alternatives considered. Until about fifteen months after a crisis, the models that rely heavier on historic patterns such as the Bridge, MIDAS and structural time series models are outperformed by more straightforward (S)ARIMA approaches.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.036 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".